Polysulfide compositions in liquid and curable form are known in the art and have been used in a variety of industries. Typically, polysulfides are cured by an oxidoreduction reaction wherein manganese dioxide is used to cure the polysulfides over a number of days. However, this long curing time increases production times and costs and reduces efficiency.
The use of sealants in the manufacture or maintenance of aircraft has previously been a very complex process. The reason for this is the numerous joints having sealants, where sealants that often have very long processing times of 12 to 60 hours must be used. These methods typically require an extremely long time for complete curing and have required a very long tack-free time in the past in proportion to the length of the processing time. For example, an interlayer sealant of class C for the aviation field typically takes 60 to 70 days to achieve a Shore A hardness of 30 if the processing time is 60 hours. Furthermore, conventional type A and B sealants, which are usually applied over a surface or in the form of a bead for coating bolts, rivets or other structural elements typically need 2 to 5 hours to become tack-free if the processing time is 30 minutes, and typically take greater than 24 hours to achieve a Shore A hardness of 30. Therefore, there remains an opportunity for improvement.